


i've been burning for you, baby, since the minute i left

by fleuravis



Series: with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah [10]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jealousy, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Reunions, Set seven years after part 9, Sobriety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleuravis/pseuds/fleuravis
Summary: Graves is on his way out the door when he sees him.The room is dim enough that he isn’t sure at first, but then he turns around and Graves would know the outline of that profile anywhere, any time, in pitch darkness or blinding light. In one thousand universes. In one thousand years.--Seven years later, Graves and Credence meet again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song 'paul' by big thief.
> 
> welcome back. <3

_September, 2021_

 

Graves is halfway out the door when he sees him.

The room is dim enough that he isn’t sure at first, but then he turns around and Graves would know the outline of that profile anywhere, any time, in pitch darkness or blinding light. In one thousand universes. In one thousand years.

His heart jumps at the base of his throat, threatening to spill out of his mouth, leak its sorrow and love all over the shiny floor of this overpriced bar. He hasn’t been here in years, not since he finally quit drinking, but it’s Queenie’s birthday and he’d promised he wouldn’t miss it. He's done the rounds, said hello to the few friends he has here and all the insipid people whose names he doesn't care to remember. He can leave now. He can go.

Just as he’s about to slip out the door a hand grabs his arm. Tina.

“You okay?”

He turns to her, head swimming. “Did you know he’d be here?”

“Swear I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was still living here. Last I heard he’d moved out to Chicago with…” She trails off. Graves doesn’t want to fucking hear it.

“I gotta go,” he mutters. He tries to shake her off but she doesn't budge.

“Percival.” She gives him a meaningful look. “Maybe you should go say hi.”

“Say _hi?_ I haven’t seen him in seven fucking years, Tina.”

“Yeah, and you haven’t changed a bit,” she says wryly. “Up to you. But he’s here alone.”

With that she steps away, heading over to a booth where Newt is pretending he's not watching them from behind a drink menu. Graves leans against the wall for a moment. In the time he’d spent speaking to Tina, the kid has managed to disappear. He stares out into a faceless crowd, everyone so anonymous and insignificant. Everyone has been, since…

_Since._ He shoves his hands in the pocket of his jacket and turns to leave the bar.

“Percy?”

He hasn’t heard Credence’s voice since the day he moved out. In old recordings, songs and interviews, yes — but it isn’t the same. Warm and honey-sweet, still so soft and gentle, even after all these years. Graves is thirty six now, so Credence must be… twenty nine? Almost thirty. The thought is strange; he’s no longer really a boy but still frozen in his youth, suspended in time in Graves’ mind.

Graves turns slowly, steeling himself, planting his feet like he’s preparing for a fight. But Credence is just staring at him, that same lopsided smile tugging at his lips. He does look older, more mature: his features are more solidly etched but still soft, his body still slight but less fragile. His hair is cropped closer to his head, a nest of dark curls tamed and no longer falling everywhere, short around the sides. No lines in his face, still so pretty. Graves feels old.

“Hello, Credence.”

“I kinda thought you might be here,” Credence admits, glancing over at the bar where Queenie is surrounded by admirers, each one begging to buy her drinks. Last call already. 

“You look good,” Graves tells him. “Really good.”

Credence doesn’t blush the way he used to, but smiles instead. “Thanks, Percy.”

He’s dressed mostly the same as he did when he was nineteen, but somehow the dark pants and faded shirt look more refined on him now. More put together. The grey-white fabric advertises a band Graves hasn’t heard of and it makes him feel even older.

“Uh, I was just about to…”

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Credence interrupts him. “I think the bar’s closing. I mean, if you’re tired…”

“No, no, I’d love to,” Graves says quickly. 

That one pointy tooth still pokes out when Credence grins. “Great. Let me just go say goodbye to Tina and Newt.”

Graves waits by the door, mind reeling. This is a bad idea, possibly the worst he’s ever had. It took him _years_ to stop thinking about Credence, lamenting the loss, searching through every possibly way they could have made it work. After three years he’d been a fucking wreck, constantly drunk, spending every night puking his guts out in his bathroom before passing out, more often on the living room couch than in bed. Television droning so he didn't feel so alone. Sleeping straight through the next afternoon. Hating himself, hating his fucking life. Thumbs constantly hovering over his phone screen, fingers twitching with muscle memory perpetually tugging him toward the digits of Credence’s number. It was only when he’d finally gotten sober, half a year as a rehab zombie, that he’d finally felt somewhat at peace with his decision. But only somewhat.

He sees Credence walking smoothly back across the room toward him. The kid has grown up, that’s for sure. He still hesitates before he speaks but it comes across as thoughtful rather than nervous. He’s still quiet but it’s polite. He doesn’t try to make himself small. 

“Ready to go?” His voice is bright. Eyes dancing. Graves nods mutely. Credence holds the door for him and it makes him want to cry for a reason he can't quite put his finger on. 

“What have you been doing?” Credence asks him as they amble down the sidewalk. Graves’ mind flashes back to all those nights on the fucking bathroom floor, six months of nothingness in rehab, and then the past three years — a session musician, playing other people’s songs, paid well from the work and from the royalty checks that still pour in from Macusa’s three releases, but it’s empty. It’s still nothingness, but it’s a more acceptable nothingness.

“Keeping busy,” he says vaguely. “Nothing too interesting. How about you?” He resists the urge to put a hand on the boy’s back, guide him smoothly past oncoming people. The instinct is still so strong after all these years.

“I’ve been writing for movie soundtracks!" Graves almost cringes at the youthful excitement that carries Credence's voice. That much hasn't changed. He wants to say _I know, Credence. Of course I know._ But he keeps his mouth shut, lets the kid keep talking. “And recording. It’s all instrumental. It’s so much fun, really, I got into it a couple years ago. Someone who liked our old records reached out.”

The casual mention of their time in Macusa makes his heart sink. So quickly written off as a mere stepping stone in his past.

“That’s great, Credence. I heard you were living in Chicago.”

“Right, yeah, briefly. I moved back here about a year ago. I live in Brooklyn now, actually.”

“Oh. What brought you back?”

Credence shrugs. “Life, I guess.” 

Vexing as always, he offers no further explanation. They fall into silence, steps nearly in sync, for several minutes.

Finally, Credence stops walking. “This is my apartment.”

Again: “Oh.” 

And then: “I guess I’ll see you around then?” _Right, after seven years and this chance encounter — see ya, Credence._

Credence takes a deep breath, blows it out. Glances around the quiet street. “Do you want to come in?”

Graves is taken aback. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

Credence nods, smiles, finally looking a little nervous. He leads Graves up the stairs to the third floor and unlocks the door at the end of the hall. 

If Graves had been told Credence was living in his own apartment in Brooklyn, this is exactly what he would have imagined. It looks like a cross between the contradicting lifestyles of a teenager and an obsessively tidy middle aged woman — white walls adorned with neatly framed posters, potted plants on the windowsill, guitars hung up in a orderly row, a desk in the corner with a sleek, wide-monitored computer. A flat screen TV mounted on the wall above a brand new video game console.

“This is nice, Cre,” he says honestly, looking around the spacious living room. He's almost jealous; his own place isn't half as nice as this and he has twice as much money as Credence does, at the very least. “You live here by yourself?”

“Yeah, you want a drink?” The kitchen is separated from the living room by a wide marble countertop, so spotless it reflects perfect circles from the hanging lights above. Graves wonders if Credence pays someone to clean the place. He doesn't realize he's staring blankly until Credence says a soft _Percy?_

The familiarity rips him out of his trance. Credence is standing in the kitchen holding two glasses, looking at him expectantly.

Graves clears his throat. “Sorry. I, uh, actually. I haven’t had a drink in four years.”

“Oh,” Credence raises his eyebrows. “Wow. That’s… that’s good, Percy.”

“Rehab works, I guess.”

He awkwardly sets the glasses down. “Yeah, I had a little bit of that myself.”

Graves stares at him, stunned. “You went to _rehab_?”

Long, pale fingers tap against the countertop. “Yeah, it — it was coke, actually.”

“ _Jesus._ How the fuck did you get into that?”

Graves has done his fair share of partying. He's tried every drug he's been offered, and that hasn't left many for him to cross off the bucket list. He had a brief but powerful love affair with cocaine that he’d gotten out of by... well, drinking more. He can’t imagine the Credence he knew putting anything up his nose. The kid had a hard enough time handling his weed. But a rolled up bill, straight cut lines, eyes rolling back, a smear of crimson above his lip — Graves shakes away the thoughts that he’s beginning to like a little too much.

“I don’t know. Life?” Credence says again. Shrugs. “Someone I was dating was really into it. He gave me some, I liked it.” He looks up with a crooked smile. “You know me. If I like something enough I don’t know when to stop.”

Graves swallows hard. “I’m glad you got better.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Thanks.”

“So are you dating anyone now?”

Credence doesn’t look at him. “Um. Yeah, kind of.”

“Oh."

Seven years ago, Graves held the hammer high. Brought it down over and over again. Today he is the bird, wing broken, helpless and wounded. Credence holds the hammer. Swings wildly. 

Credence is only silent for a beat, and then he perks up again, handing Graves a glass of water and gesturing to the sitting area of the lofty room. “Make yourself comfortable. This place is great. It was supposed to just be a landing spot while I figured something else out but I had to stay. I mean, look at it.” He waves vaguely, wildly, around the open space, the high ceiling, the wall that’s mostly window, looking out over the sparkling lights of the Brooklyn night.

_Who are you dating?_ Graves wants to ask. _What’s he like? Is he older than you? Is he older than me? Does he have money? Is he a musician? Does he take care of you? Does he fuck you like I did, Credence?_

The barrage of questions makes his head spin and he holds them back, all of them, taking sips of his water to keep his mouth occupied lest something slip out unwarranted. He’s sitting in one of the plush modern armchairs but entirely unable to get comfortable. The layout of this apartment is so similar to their old one. Graves hasn’t been back to that side of town in years; he can’t stand the thought of walking by, of peering up at the window and seeing somebody else moving around, somebody else’s photos on the walls, dinner on the table. That was their home.

“Where are you living now?” Credence asks him, perching on the wide sofa across the coffee table. Six feet between them. It feels like oceans.

“Um.” Graves clears his throat. “Still in Manhattan, yeah. Upper East Side. It’s a decent place. Left half of a duplex. Right by the Met.” He smiles a little, looking up at Credence, wondering if the name draws the same memory to his mind: the two of them walking side by side through the vast building, Credence in awe of the soft detail of the sculptures, Graves showing him his favourite Vermeers. He catches a glimpse of it on the boy’s face, but it’s gone just as quickly as he brings his own glass to his lips. Water as well. 

“Do you still talk to Newt and Tina at all?”

Graves will be pissed if he does. Fucking traitors. Telling him they haven’t heard from Credence, hardly daring to even speak his name in Graves’ presence. The boy has become a ghost in his life, to the point where sometimes Graves feels like he’s going fucking crazy, like Credence never really existed in the first place. The only thing that keeps him hanging on to his last thread of sanity is the box he keeps tucked away in the bottom drawer of his living room cabinet, beneath heavy shelves of novels. Newspaper clippings, magazine articles, photographs, printed internet blurbs. Everything he can find on Credence’s career, his work, his life. Graves can never bring himself to go through them, but he has to save them; each little slip of paper is forced out of his mind as soon as he slides it into the box.

“From time to time,” Credence says, and Graves remains neutral, not exactly ready to murder Newt and Tina, but still on guard. “When I moved to Chicago I lost touch with everyone. Kind of with myself, too.” He smiles ruefully. “Things were bad for a while but they got better, now I’m here.” He shrugs. “Back where it all started, I guess.”

_What the fuck does_ that _mean?_ Graves keeps his face straight. “Who did you move to Chicago with?”

It’s a bold question. Seven years ago, he wouldn’t have thought so; seven years ago he was much more brazen and fearless than he is now. Now his stomach clenches in wait of Credence’s response, like he’s going to shatter the moment he opens his mouth.

And he almost does. He watches Credence’s lips move around the words before he registers what’s being said, those plush lips, pink and soft, those dancing eyes. “You remember Draco?”

Graves nearly chokes on his words. “How could I forget.”

Credence seems a little embarrassed, like he's caught himself being petty. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to stir anything up. That's in the past, anyway. Haven't spoken to him in years.” He rises and goes into the kitchen, busying himself at the sink, pointlessly washing his glass for far too long, turning it over in his hands. What he says next is nearly lost under the rush of the water from the tap. “I miss you, Percy.”

Graves is starting to really regret ever having come here. It was a mistake, of course it was, he knew that the moment Credence asked. But how could he deny him? Never once in his life has he been able to deny him. And now he’s here in an alien place, Credence’s own home where he lives without him, in an uncomfortable chair with a half-empty glass of water clutched in one twitchy hand, Credence at the sink nervously washing dishes to death, telling him he’s _missed_ him, and all Graves can think about is getting up and marching over there and sitting him up on the counter, all twenty-nine-years of him, all one hundred and forty pounds of him, and kissing him until they open their eyes and they’re back in their home, back in each other’s arms forever.

_Forget whoever you’re seeing now,_ he wants to say.

_I love you, Credence, and I always will,_ he wants to say.

_Come to me, Credence, come to me with that same sweet obedience you always did before, come to me with your shaking hands and wide eyes, come to me with your grown out hair and daisy-petal skin, come to me with your trauma and your fear and your nightmares, your desire and your need and your pleasure, come to me with everything you have and everything you want, come to me and I will do anything._

“I think I should go,” Graves says.

He’s out the door before Credence has a chance to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this series is honestly out of control but... this is the last part. 6 chapters. (and probably an epilogue posted separately i'm so so sorry)
> 
> this'll be updated monday/wednesday/friday like the others.
> 
> [here's a post (with a lil edit) for this fic on tumblr if you want to share!](https://cannibalteacups.tumblr.com/post/181699414050/ive-been-burning-for-you-baby-since-the-minute)


	2. Chapter 2

Since putting down his last bottle of liquor, Graves has been waking much earlier. Not quite rising with the sun, but his body seems to know it’s meant to be an adult now, and it won’t let him lounge his days away like he used to. It’s infuriating sometimes, especially when he’s planned a nice long day of wallowing in self pity, loathing the thought of getting out of bed at all. He rolls around, unable to get comfortable, checking the alarm clock on his bedside table over and over again.

_9:21. 9:23. 9:24. Fuck._

He groans and yawns and stretches and then finally resigns himself to getting out of bed. He makes coffee, standing at the counter and watching it drip. He’s decidedly depressed today, and plans to remain that way until he’s required to be a human being again. He doesn’t have another session until next week. 

Generally, he’s tried to occupy his days since getting sober. Idle hands, devil’s playground, et cetera. He forces himself to book as many studio sessions as he can, finding work the way he used to find parties, keeping his mind so full to the brim with his job that he has no room for nostalgia. Maybe it’s unhealthy, but it’s the only way he can manage to cope.

He’s filled his bed as well, and so he has no right to press unbidden jealousy onto Credence — although the kid seems to have jumped from relationship to relationship, taking it so far as to move cities for whoever he’s fucking, probably believing he’s in love. How sweet. How naïve.

_I was just another one,_ Graves tells himself. _Doesn’t matter that I was the first. I’m not any higher up on the fucking list._

Personally, he's been unable to keep anyone around, and mostly for lack of trying: the moment the person he’s sleeping with does anything, _says_ anything that is decidedly un-Credence, his attraction flattens, his interest dissipates. These young-looking pretty boys with dark hair and enigmatic smirks, they can only hold his attention for so long. Long enough for him to fuck them, of course, long enough for him to cover their mouths and squint his eyes and pretend he’s back with the only boy he loves, and then in the post-coital shame, he feels disgusted.

He’s thought about women. Maybe that would take his mind off of Credence for good — he’ll never get anywhere seeking out doppelgangers and trying to mold them into the shape where the boy used to be. A woman would be entirely different: a new page, a fresh start. But he can’t make himself do it. Can’t make himself even half-desire anything that he can’t forge into a replica of Credence.

The only way he’s been able to get off is thoughts of the boy, whether he’s weaving his hand into another head of dark curls, fucking them the way he used to fuck him, or alone with his own hands and five years worth of photos and videos taken on his phone. He knows he should delete them, knows it’s weird — creepy, really — to have them still saved in his camera roll. Credence would be uncomfortable if he knew. But that isn’t enough to make Graves let go and delete any of it. Not the sweet little photos they took while lounged together in bed, not the ones Tina took of them leaning into each other’s bodies in Central Park, not the candids he took of Credence curled up sleepily in their living room, and certainly, _certainly_ not the moonlit snapshots of his pale and slender body spread out on the sheets, stretched and arched, the soft canyon between his ribcage glistening with opalescent come. Certainly not the videos of Credence looking up at him with dark eyes as he swallows Graves down, certainly not the photos of his flushed and shining cock, his ass with three of Graves’ fingers shoved inside, his chest colored with exertion.

No, Graves cannot bring himself to delete them because they are his refuge, the one piece left that he clings to. Besides, it’s not like Credence will ever know.

He spends the day on the couch, ordering enough Chinese take-out for three people and eating it slowly and mindlessly as he binge watches Law and Order. It’s appallingly typical, but he needs to give himself at least one day to do fuck all and feel sorry for himself.

It’s nearly eight in the evening when his phone lights up with a text from an unknown number.

_Hey, Percy. It’s Cre. I was just wondering if you’d like to have dinner tomorrow? I can come to Manhattan. Or you can come to Brooklyn, there’s this great Thai place that I go to all the time. Let me know. :)_

His heart stops the moment he gets past the first four words. He struggles to read the rest, to make the words process through his head as comprehensible sentences. Dinner. With Credence _._

_Sure, I can come to Brooklyn. 6 pm good?_

It’s all painfully formal. Credence texts back to confirm and give him the address. He hasn’t heard of the place. He sinks back into the couch and once again regrets agreeing to this. Seeing Credence isn’t a good idea, not for his own fucking sanity. Who knows about the kid. It probably doesn’t get to him at all, considering he’s been off in la la land with a new boyfriend every year. Meanwhile, Graves has been fucking his way through the half-goth twinks of Manhattan and only making himself more miserable.

He supposes he should be more proud of his personal growth, Credence aside. He's sober, he has a steady job. He donates to charity and he calls his mother at least once a week. He’s gotten a much better handle on his anger after four years of therapy. He should be happy with himself, should be grateful that he dug himself out of his Grand Canyon of fuck-ups, but he isn’t. What’s the use of success if you have no one to share it with?

In the early hours of the morning, Graves wakes up, having passed out in a half-sitting position on the couch. He groans at the pain in his back and neck — _fucking old._ He manages to stumble into bed before falling asleep again, dreaming of a faceless boy across the dinner table, a candle between them that won’t stay lit.

 

——

  
  


Brooklyn is windy and cool and Graves keeps his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, chin tucked down in his collar. He counts every step he takes toward the restaurant and with each movement the dread stabs harder at him, twisting its knife into his softest parts. He feels like an animal, belly up at Credence’s feet, offering himself. Sacrificial. _Whatever you want, Credence. Whatever you need._

Thirty seven steps from his car to the restaurant. Twenty minutes to drive home, depending on traffic. If he needs to leave, he’ll leave. He tells himself that.

Credence hasn’t arrived yet; a quick scan of the hole-in-the-wall restaurant tells him as much. He slides into a booth in the back. It’s dimly lit, tinted warm with orange and red from the gold decor, the walls painted scarlet. He flips the drink menu upside down. Places his palms flat on his thighs to keep from fidgeting.

It’s only 5:56. He’ll be here soon.

Just before the clock ticks to six o’clock, as Graves is considering leaving and blocking Credence’s number and moving out of New York and America in general and possibly launching himself into outer space, the little bell above the door sings out and draws Graves’ eyes to the front of the restaurant. 

Credence looks beautiful. He moves with grace and calm, some kind of gentle shifting of the air, his shoulders back and his chin high and pointed forward. None of his previous timid, shaky countenance; his long limbs are elegant and agile rather than spindly and awkward. His hair is perfectly tamed and shiny, his face shaved smooth, his jacket clinging to his slender arms and the soft slope of his spine. 

He’s talking over his shoulder to someone, a full and open-mouthed smile tugging up the corners of his lips as he laughs. Graves watches, frozen, as he holds the door open and a man walks in behind him. Young, most likely Credence’s age, no more than a couple years older. A wave of blond hair framing his bright and rosy face, ski-slope nose, round blue eyes. Credence surveys the room before his eyes narrow in on Graves and he tugs at the other man’s arm, leading him across the room, weaving through tables and finally slipping into the seat across from Graves.

“Hey,” he says breathlessly, prompting the blond to sit beside him. “This is Caleb.”

Caleb and Credence. Credence and Caleb. How _cute._ Graves’ mouth fills up with bitter thoughts, acrid like the mornings after his blackout nights, thoughts of Credence pressed close to this boy, this Aryan fucking prince, their bodies sharing sweat and spit, their lips opening to each other. He wonders in a spiral of sickening thoughts — _does Credence love him? Does he tell him so? Does Credence fuck him, or does he let himself be fucked?_

“Hi, Caleb,” Graves says, and he feels the tightness in his voice, watches it register on Credence’s face. It passes quickly and Credence grabs the menu.

“You order yet? I’m starving. We’ve been out all day, kinda forgot to eat.” He nudges Caleb with his elbow. “Spring rolls or dumplings?”

“Dumplings,” Caleb answers. “ _Obviously._ ” 

His voice is soft and warm, a little deeper than Credence’s. Every once in a while his eyes flit over to Credence’s face and he seems to be unable to conceal his smile. _Fuck._ Head over fucking heels already. Graves’ stomach twists. How long have they been together? Credence said he moved here a year ago. Did they meet in Brooklyn? Did they move here together from Chicago? 

“Didn’t order yet. I thought I’d wait for your suggestion.” Graves says, a little testily. _Thought you’d be here alone,_ he doesn’t say.

“The Pad Thai is great,” Credence says, and if he notices the persistent irritation in Graves’ tone he doesn’t let on. He keeps his eyes fixed on the menu, poring over the list of entrees. “But their curry’s good too. And their stir fry.” He looks up and offers Graves a familiar smile. “Get the soft rolls. They make them perfect here.”

Graves nods. Fixes his eyes on the menu but doesn’t read a word. He’s angry, but he has no right to be. Maybe this isn’t some game Credence is playing. Maybe he really is just trying to be nice. It’s been seven years; Graves should have moved on by now. It's not Credence's fault that he hasn't.

Thankfully a waiter arrives and takes their order, and Graves can pretend for five seconds like he isn’t fucking spiralling internally. He’s got to get out of here, and fast — as soon as he’s done eating he’ll make an excuse, fake a phone call, whatever he has to do. Leave these two lovebirds, who have their fingers hooked in the space between them, alone to be happy and rid of Graves’ presence.

_Fuck._

Credence asks him about his job, about bands he’s recorded for, about Tina and Newt. Graves’ heart sinks when he asks about his parents. Unwanted memories of holiday dinners flood his mind, of his mother hugging Credence tight and fretting over his skinny arms, sending him home with endless Tupperware containers, of his father’s snide remarks — fuck, why couldn’t he just be _nice?_ Why couldn’t Graves himself just be _nice?_

“They’re okay,” he says, sipping his water and casting his eyes downward. “Yeah, uh. My father’sill, but he’s an alcoholic, so that’s to be expected. My mother’s great. Sad, but healthy.”

“I’m so sorry,” Credence says, round eyes softening. _Yeah, I’m sure you’re fucking sorry. What are Caleb’s parents like? Did his father embarrass him and offend you the first time you met? I’m sure they’re warm and accepting, very carbon family, blonde and blue-eyed, white picket fence. Do you go there for dinner on Sundays?_

“Yeah, s’okay.” Graves has to keep his mouth shut between every short utterance, terrified that if he parts his lips enough his angry stream of consciousness is going to come spilling out all over the wooden tabletop, into their food and onto Credence and Caleb’s perfectly pressed shirts. “How’s Modesty?”

“Oh, she’s great!” Credence perks up at that. “She just turned eighteen. I moved her into an apartment about a year ago. She’s starting college this month and she’s got a really sweet boyfriend.”

“What’s she studying?” Graves feels his irritation dim at the thought of the girl, at the memories of the three of them going out to eat burgers and french fries and ice cream, seeing movies and walking through Central Park, pointing out the dogs and watching the buskers.

“Law,” Credence smirks. “Eventually. She’s going to do Political Science and English at NYU for an undergrad. She got a full ride scholarship. She’s so smart.”

“I know she is,” Graves murmurs, and Caleb’s eyes dart over to Credence again. Credence ignores him. Their food arrives and grants Graves an excuse to not say another word as he steadily puts forkful after forkful of Pad Thai into his mouth. Credence launches into a story about how he'd discovered Modesty's furtive little relationship — he and Caleb had been going to the movies and they’d run into them in the lobby.

“Holding hands,” Caleb interjects with a bright grin. “Turning all red and stuff. It was so cute.”

“ _So_ cute,” Credence agrees. “And she was so scared, like I was gonna be _mad_ or something, but obviously I wasn’t, so we invited them out for dinner…”

“…and the kid showed up in a suit!”

Graves wants to literally vomit at the sight of these two finishing each other’s sentences, throwing smiles back and forth, two halves of one disgustingly sweet whole.

“That’s nice,” is all he can manage before turning back to his food. He manages to say less than ten more words throughout the rest of their dinner. It’s humiliating, the contrast between the evening he’d imagined and the one currently unfolding around him. He’d pictured a candlelit table, tucked away in the corner, Credence’s hands reaching for his across the table, whispering admissions of love, saying _I still want you._  Saying _let’s go, let’s go away, let’s go anywhere._

Instead, he’s sitting in an uncomfortable booth across from a couple that appears to be madly in love, one half of which is the only person he’s thought about for the last eleven years of his life. 

_This is your fault,_ he reminds himself. _You chose this. You left him. He never would have left you._

He shakes the thoughts away. It's becoming abundantly clear that leaving Credence was the best thing Graves ever did for him. He's an adult now, with his own life and his own apartment and his own career, confident and bright, speaking clearly and not mumbling, not hiding his face, not shuffling his feet. Allowing himself to exist unapologetically. Here he is with a man who clearly adores him, who hangs onto his every word, who watches him with nothing but admiration in his eyes. Who probably makes him dinner and never yells at him and never calls him stupid. Here he is with someone who makes him happy, and all Graves can do is resent him for it.

He can’t get out of the restaurant fast enough. He pays for the meal, met with protests from both Credence and Caleb, which he waves off. Splitting the bill would take too long and he needs to get the fuck _out._ He bids them goodbye, citing some weak excuse about having an important phone call tonight, and practically runs out the door. Thirty seven steps from the restaurant to his car. Twenty four minutes to drive home. His apartment feels cold and empty. He thinks about the Victorian windows in his old bedroom. Their old bedroom. The ones that spilled slanted beams of light across Credence’s back, breaking him up into geometric parts. Graves had never been more eager to learn.

Stupid. _Stupid_.

The text comes late into the night, just as Graves is settling in to bed. 

 

_Hey I’m sure you’re busy. Just wanted to thank you for dinner. You didn’t have to do that. S orry if it was uncomfortable. I should have told you I wasn’t coming alone. Caleb and I were already out and I felt weird not inviting him. Have a good night, Percy._

 

He shuts off his phone and goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sooo sorry. it hurts me too.
> 
> (caleb is sometimes translated to mean 'dog', referring to a puppy-like devotion to god. take from that what you will)


	3. Chapter 3

Graves doesn’t see Credence again for three weeks. It’s not for lack of trying: he actively makes an effort to run into him, despite the meager bits of logic left in his head all screaming that it's a bad idea. His heart wins every time. He hangs out in Brooklyn, he goes to all the cafes and bars they used to go to together, he makes sure to make an appearance any time there’s a show he thinks Credence might be interested in. There’s no sign of him, though, and Graves is starting to think that the entire encounter was some long and harrowing fever dream.

He goes out with Sera one Friday night; she’s had a long week, neck deep in way too many cases, and calls him up just around dinner time.

“I know you won’t have a drink, but I need one. Get a ginger ale.”

He laughs and agrees to meet her. They split an enormous pizza and then walk around the corner to one of her favourite upscale bars where all the cocktails have names like _Harvest Moon_ and _Boulevardier._ Sera orders something called _Holy Water_ and Graves’ heart aches.

“I see that look on your face,” she tells him, one eyebrow quirked. “What’s going on?”

He sighs. “I saw Credence.”

Her eyebrow finishes its upward journey, leaving her to look entirely scandalized. “Excuse me? When?”

“Uh, about three weeks ago.”

“And you were planning on telling me when…?”

“When I stopped fucking killing myself over it,” he mutters. “And I still haven’t.”

“How is he? He’s still living in New York?”

“He’s doing great,” Graves says miserably. “He’s dating this fucking blond guy who looks like he comes from the Urban Outfitter Twinks catalogue.”

Sera chokes back a laugh. “Glad you’re not bitter or anything.”

“You know I’m not over him, Sera. I’m never gonna be. Fuck, he’s living out a rom com and I’m here jerking off to pictures of him from when he was a teenager.”

“Holy fuck, Graves, I didn’t need to hear that.”

“Whatever.” Graves shakes his head, taking a sip of his Diet Coke. The carbonation burns his tongue. 

“You still seeing Newt and Tina?”

“Not really. It’s been weird since they got back.”

“You should reach out,” Sera urges. “Maybe try to make music together again. Just for fun, even. It could be good for your mental health to create something that isn’t under someone else’s direction.”

“Jesus, you sound like my therapist,” Graves mutters. “Besides, Tina and Newt are all _settled down_ now.”

“They’re a thirty-six year old married couple,” Sera reasons. “It kinda makes sense?”

Graves hunches his shoulders, elbows braced on the reflective surface of the bar. “Guess so.”

“I’m your friend, Graves, but I’m only one person. You need more than that. Tina and Newt love you and they’re good people. I know you’re bitter and want to dwell in your own misery or whatever but you’re almost forty. Maybe if you hang out with them they can introduce you to some nice divorcee in their new group of grown up friends.” Graves shudders melodramatically and Sera laughs. “Or at least you’ll have something to _do._ I still use your Netflix. I saw how many episodes of Law and Order you watched last week.”

“You’re a fuckin’ lawyer now, you’d think you could pay for your own Netflix subscription,” Graves grumbles.

Sera sips her cocktail, eyes dancing. “Not like you have anyone else to share it with.”

 

——

 

Motivated by Sera’s incessant nagging, Graves texts Newt, just to ask if he’d like to get a coffee and catch up. _Tina is welcome to come,_ he adds. _Obviously._

He won’t admit it, not to Newt or Tina or Sera or even to himself, but his strongest drive to get together with the two of them is to try and leech out some information about Caleb. He hates himself for how much he allows the kid to occupy his mind. Caleb seems innocent enough, kind and funny and caring, and he obviously loves Credence. Shouldn’t Graves be glad Credence has somebody who loves him? Somebody who deserves him, who won’t hurt him or punish him for their own goddamn failings?

He can already hear Tina’s voice in his head. _He’s happy, Graves. Let him be happy._ He can see Newt’s tentative nods of agreement. It makes his blood boil. They don’t know. Caleb doesn’t know. Nobody knows, nobody except for Credence and himself. Nobody else was there in the inconceivable space between their bodies, the places where their lips met.

True to his assumptions, both Tina and Newt give him a look when he tries to casually bring up the name the next morning.

“Caleb, you know him?”

Tina sighs, turning her head to glance out at the busy city street just past the glass window of the coffeeshop. “Yes,” she says finally. “Why?”

“You know why. Don’t pretend.”

Newt shifts uncomfortably. “It’s been seven years, Perce…”

“Can you just tell me what you know about him?” Graves interrupts, a little too harshly.

“Ease up, Graves,” Tina says. “He’s a nice kid, I don’t know. I think he’s Swedish. Credence met him in Chicago and they moved here together. Caleb got him out of a really shitty situation with a guy he was seeing. He was getting into drugs, wasn’t working… Caleb turned his life around.”

“Turned his _life_ around? As if Credence was some kind of backwards hopeless case?"  
  
“That’s not what I’m saying, you—”

“No. No. I don’t want to hear what you’re saying.” Graves’ head is spinning. His own friends, his own fucking _friends_. He wants to whip his hand across the table, send mugs and pastries flying, get up on his chair and scream. He clenches his fists in his lap and his jaw tightens. _Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten._ His therapists’s voice echoes in the cavern of his skull, where violent fire is slowly ravaging any rational thoughts. _Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Feet on the ground. Breathe._

“Caleb is a good man,” Newt tells him, “and Credence is doing very well. That’s all that matters.”

“I’ve gotta go,” he mutters, stumbling to his feet, sending the chair screeching across the tile floor. He leaves his half-drunk coffee and the scone he barely touched, leaves his friends and their self-righteous superiority complexes behind.

“Percy!” Tina calls after him. He doesn’t turn back.

 

——

 

Graves loves Central Park.

Against all odds, despite his distaste for all-things-tourist, it’s his favourite place to be in October. He can spend hours walking through the carnival of colours, the gradient sky, the oranges and reds and yellows of the trees. The air is cool and still and it’s never as claustrophobically packed as it is in the summer months. 

Today, more than ever, he needs a walk. If he can just think it all through, if he can just work out the knots in his brain then maybe he’ll be able to see the situation more clearly. Uncloud his cloudy head.

He’s just rounding a curve in his usual trail when he stumbles into Credence, clutching the leash of a small, patchy Beagle.

“Oh,” Credence says, looking mildly surprised. “Hi.”

“Hey.” After weeks of trying to run into him, it really would happen _now._ “You didn’t mention you have a dog.”

Credence smiles sheepishly, looking down at the pup who’s sitting loyally at his feet, panting up at him, pink tongue poking out. “Caleb’s, really. He rescued him last year from the shelter. But I named him. Gatsby.”

Graves has to stop himself from gaping at the kid, who’s looking at him with a kind of hopeful nervousness written on his face.

“Nice,” he says lamely. “You walk him, though.”

Credence shrugs. “Sometimes. When Caleb’s gotta work all day. I like him.” He tugs at the leash a little, smiling at the stupid dog, who’s still watching him adoringly. “I think he likes me.”

“Looks like it,” Graves agrees.

When did they dissolve into this painfully awkward and forced conversation? When did they become the kind of people he always pitied? _Small talk is torture when you used to love me. When I still love you._

“Wanna walk with me?”

The words take Graves by surprise, and from the look on Credence’s face after they slip past his lips, he’s just as taken aback.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” It’s not as if he can make an excuse or say he has somewhere to be. It’s not as if he even wants to.

They walk in silence for a while, Gatsby trotting along happily beside them. Puppy. Graves steals a glance at Credence, who’s gazing around at the park, little hints of that childish wonder that Graves fell in love with still revealing themselves in the quirk of his lips, the sparkle in his eyes. _Puppy._

“How long have you been with Caleb?” He asks. Tries to make his voice sound nonchalant. It’s impossible.

“Um, about two years, on and off.” Credence squints at him as bright light pours in between the tree branches. “I never planned on it being… serious. It just kind of happened. He moved here with me from Chicago."

“That sounds serious.”

Credence laughs softly. “He knows some people in New York. Not like it’s another country. He’s from Sweden, originally. All his family is there.”

“Huh.” Graves has absolutely nothing to say to that, but he asks anyway, because he wants to make Credence happy. “You love him?”

Gatsby tries to run off the trail, chasing the tail of a lively squirrel. Credence stumbles a little, tugging him back into line, a murmur of _good boy_ under his breath. Then he turns back to Graves. “I think I do.”

Graves hates Central Park. He wishes he were anywhere but here. 

Gatsby is panting loudly as he scampers alongside them, weaving in and out of Credence’s feet. _He’s got lung problems,_ Credence mumbles in explanation. Graves can’t find it in himself to feel sorry for the dog.

“You aren't seeing anyone?” Now it’s Credence with the practiced casual tone, not meeting his eyes. He knows the answer.

“Nobody interests me,” Graves says, and it comes out sharper than he intends it. _Nobody is you,_ he doesn’t say. “I’ve been with people, here and there,” he adds, a feeble attempt at making Credence jealous. “Nothing long term. Not like you.”

He can’t help the petty comment. It’s in his blood.

Credence gives him a strange look. “I’m a romantic.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Graves sighs. Luckily Credence just laughs, grabbing Graves’ arm and leaning into him as they walk. It suddenly feels painfully familiar, an immediate visceral return to their days in this same park, on these same trails, nearly a decade ago: walking hand in hand, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder. As quickly as it had come, the contact is gone, and Graves feels irrevocably vacant.

They reach the end of the trail where the path leads out into the sidewalk, the gate back into the city, and they both hesitate.

“Will I see you again?” Credence asks.

“Do you want to?”

Gatsby wheezes quietly. Graves stares down at the dog, who stares right back. His mouth pulled open in a perpetual smile.

“Sure,” Credence says. “Yeah.”

“We could get dinner sometime next week. Or maybe… maybe just coffee. The two of us?” He looks up expectantly.

“Okay,” Credence says. His voice sounds very small. Graves can’t fight the feeling that he spends twenty minutes with the kid and already has him broken back down to his weakest form. Can’t help but fuck him up.

“I’m gonna go now,” Graves says.

“Okay.”

He passes through the gate out to the street and glances back over his shoulder. Credence is practically skipping down the path, eyes fixed on Gatsby, who’s bouncing along his feet. Credence is giggling and cooing at the dog, tugging at his leash and staying half-bent to talk at him. He doesn’t look back.

 

——

 

Credence is already waiting at a table by the window when Graves arrives. It’s a cafe in Manhattan that they used to go to all the time: their second most frequented, after Jacob’s of course. Graves had considered going there, but he has no desire to bring on an unsolicited line of questioning from Jacob and Queenie, and in turn, Tina and Newt. Credence has already got a mug in his hands and he’s staring out the window at the city street, looking a million miles away. He’s wearing glasses, strangely enough. He never did before. Wire-rimmed and round and perched on the bridge of his nose; they make him look mousy and cute.

Graves gets his coffee before he sits down. Credence looks up quickly, blearily, as though he's tumbling out of a daydream. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey.” Graves glances at the mug in Credence’s hands and is surprised to see coffee rather than some sugar-sweet chocolate drink, some expensive holiday concoction.

“I drink coffee now,” Credence grins, sensing Graves’ confusion. “I am nearly thirty, you know.”

“Strange to hear,” Graves murmurs, and Credence nods.

“Yeah. It’s weird, right?”

“And I’m almost forty,” Graves teases. “I’m about to head into my mid-life crisis.”

“Thirty six isn’t almost forty,” Credence scoffs. “And besides, you’ve been in your mid-life crisis for the past ten years.”

“Ha-ha.” Graves rolls his eyes, taking a long gulp of coffee. “Have you been busy with work lately?”

“Eh, sometimes,” Credence waves one hand dismissively. “I kind of work on my own schedule. I basically write whatever I can and then sell it to movies and commercials and all that. I have a major project twice, maybe three times a year, and then I’m totally consumed in it and I don’t leave my studio for like a month. I lose twenty pounds every time.”

“You don’t have twenty pounds to lose,” Graves remarks.

“One hundred and forty five,” Credence says proudly. That earns him a laugh.

“Congratulations.”

“Yeah, anyway. I’ve got a big one coming out next November, I think. It’s real big. Can’t even tell you what it is.” He looks at Graves mischievously over the rim of his mug. Graves has to force back the urge to reach out, cradle the boy’s jaw, kiss him long and hard. 

“I’ll look for your name in the credits.”

“How about you, anything exciting?”

“Just making money,” Graves admits. “Haven’t had a passion project in years. I was thinking of trying to make music with Newt and Tina again.” That’s a bold-faced lie. He can almost _hear_ Sera scoffing at him. _Are you, now._

“Oh, that’s so exciting!” Credence sounds genuinely thrilled. “Let me know if you do that, I wanna come hang out.”

_Yeah, why don't you bring your boyfriend? Unless he’s too busy auditioning for fucking Degrassi._

“Yeah, if you aren’t too busy, I guess.”

“I’m rarely busy,” Credence grins. “I still play too many video games. When Caleb’s working I’m basically useless.”

“Where does he work?” Graves really doesn’t give a fuck, but he plays along.

“He’s a writer, a music journalist. That’s how we met.” Credence looks up at him playfully. “He was writing a piece on me. Kinda classic, huh?”

“Yeah. Classic.” Graves knows his voice is cold and dismissive. He doesn’t care enough to correct it, to put effort into playing the role of the supportive ex boyfriend. He doesn’t fucking _care_ how Credence and Caleb met, doesn’t care to hear about their jobs or their life together, where they adopted their fucking dog. His blood is burning through his veins at this point and he just wants to leave. To give up on this, give up on Credence, walk away and not come back. He knew from the start this was a mistake.

Credence shifts uncomfortably, clutching his mug in both hands, staring down into the rapidly cooling coffee. “Yeah, anyway. He works really long days sometimes, when there’s a lot of news and all that. I mean, we don’t live together.”

“Those glasses look ridiculous,” Graves says abruptly, and then regrets it the moment it comes out. It’s unnecessarily cruel. But Credence just blinks at him, fingers coming up to toy at one arm of the glasses, and then his lips curl up in a tiny smile.

“I like them.”

“Since when do you need glasses?”

He shrugs. “My vision’s never been great. I’m bad at wearing them, though. I usually forget.”

“Mm.” Graves takes a long, slow sip. “I never asked you if you wanted to live in New York.”

“What?” Credence looks at him blankly. 

“I never asked,” Graves repeats. “I just assumed you were okay with it. With staying. That you wanted to live here because I did. But as soon as I… as soon as I leave you’re moving out to Chicago and I just wonder if you never wanted to stay here in the first place. Sorry. I just… I’m sorry.”

Credence gives him a strange look. “Of all the things you’re going to apologize for now,” he says slowly, and then his lips quirk up and he shakes his head. “Of all the things.”

It’s the first acknowledgement he’s made of the trials of their past, of the ways Graves hurt him. He can see the silvery trails down Credence’s arms, the very ends peeking out from his sleeves.

“Credence, I—” _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I would take it back, all of it, if I could._ “I, um. Well, I mean, I’m in therapy.” He clears his throat. _Here you are, making excuses again._ “I had a lot of stuff going on in my head that needed to be fixed.” He gives Credence a small smile. “Of course, you know that.”

Credence just stares at him. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, I, uh. I am. It helps a lot. I don’t get so messed up anymore, you know, so angry. And not drinking helps too.”

“I’m glad it’s helping you.”

Graves doesn’t say anything. He watches out the window as a couple passes by, arms swinging, hands intertwined. Then a mother and her young daughter, matching their steps, shopping bags clutched in their hands. A barista comes by and clears Graves’ empty cup away. The song playing softly on the stereo system ends and another starts up, and Graves’ heart skips a beat.

Newt’s voice. Credence’s slow strumming. Tina’s marching beat. His steady bass, sliding in on the second line.

And maybe it’s some sign from the universe, or whatever God exists or doesn’t exist, or maybe it’s truly a coincidence. Maybe a barista recognized them and thought it would be funny. Maybe they just happen to be included in the playlist. But whatever it is, it suddenly solidifies in Graves’ mind that he is not giving up, he is not backing away, he is not scratching Credence out of his life. Whatever cosmic force brought them together continued on to rip them apart, and all Graves can do now is believe that they are once again circling around to where they started.

“Holy shit,” Credence laughs. “It’s us.”

“Yes,” Graves says. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, credence's glasses are inspired by [this picture](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DthU9RIX4AAWBK9.jpg) (and all the others from that day) of ezra because like... oh my god what a perfect look for him.
> 
> this is so angsty i'm sorry!!!


	4. Chapter 4

Credence walks him home, and that’s the last Graves sees of him for weeks. He has to wait it out. He has to be patient. He’s never been very good at that — but nothing has ever mattered this much.

And so he keeps his distance. He spends more time with Tina and Newt, pointedly ignoring the subject of Credence and Caleb. He goes out with Sera on the weekends. He keeps his appointments with his therapist. He visits his parents. He lives his life the best he can and tries not to think about the boy who continues to be the subject of every single one of his dreams.

He’s on the fifth floor of Macy’s, trying to find his way out of department store Hell, when another unmistakeable sign comes to him in the shape of somebody he hasn’t seen in years.

“Percy!” A voice calls out, and he turns on his heel to see her: small, slender and blonde as her youth, a shopping bag clutched in her hand. She’s smiling, bright and genuine, one hand raised in a half-wave.

“Modesty? Holy shit! I didn’t recognize you at first!” He wraps her in a hug, rocking in place. “Jesus, you’re big. I mean, you’re tiny. But you’re old! Last time I saw you you were what, twelve?”

“Yeah, it’s been years! How are you?”

“I’m great, yeah, really good. How are _you_? I heard you’re going to college now.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You saw Credence?”

“Uh, yeah, a couple times recently. He didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t seen him in a few weeks,” she says, and sounds like she's slowly clueing in to something. “Is he not—”

“He’s with Caleb,” Graves says quickly, catching her train of thought before she can let it out. “I just ran into him so we decided to catch up. I had dinner with the two of them, actually.”

“Oh.” She gives him a tight lipped smile, less genuine than her previous one. “That’s good.”

“Do you like him?” He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t push. It’s a leading question; he can hear his parents’ voices, the way they’d use their lawyer-talk on him in every argument, every negotiation since he was a young child. This could get back to Credence and piss him off. Graves can't bear the thought of losing him again.

“Yeah,” Modesty says vaguely. “He’s nice. Really nice. It’s just…” she shrugs and smiles shyly. “He’s not you.”

“Modesty,” he admonishes. “I’m nothing special.”

“None of them are as real as you, Percy,” she tells him.

“Well, thanks.” He doesn’t want to say more, doesn’t want to risk Credence getting a report of their conversation. “I heard you’re gonna be a lawyer?”

“In like, a million years.” She sighs. “So much school. It’s okay, though, I like it.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and glances at it, wincing. “I wish I could stay and talk but I've gotta go. Take care, Percy, and keep hanging out with Credence. I miss having you around.” She pulls him in for another hug, kisses his cheek and then saunters off, throwing another wave back over her shoulder.

Graves breathes out hard. His head is swimming as he tries to make sense of the conversation. Modesty doesn't like Caleb either. Or at least she doesn't like him more than she likes Graves, and that's got to mean something. She's Credence’s beloved little sister, after all. Maybe she'll knock some sense into him.

He escapes Macy’s moments later and calls Sera from the car. “We’re going out tonight.”

Sera sounds amused. “You’re in a good mood. Where are we going?”

“Anywhere,” Graves grins, shaking his head. “I don’t care.”

 

——

  
  


They end up getting tacos in Queens and then scouring Facebook for the night’s events.

“Disco night at Retro Club,” Sera offers, to which Graves makes a sour face. “Okay, fine. The Pyramid?”

“Eh,” Graves sighs, his enthusiasm for the night diminishing rapidly. “Maybe we should just call it a night.”

“Fuck off, Graves, you promised me a night out,” Sera complains. “You know how often I get to go out?”

“Like, every weekend with me?”

“Yeah, well, weeks feel like years at the office. We’re going out. Let’s go to Metro, it’s Friday.”

“You really want to spend your sacred night out at a gay club in Brooklyn?”

“Do I want to dance with a bunch of attractive and unavailable men and get offered as many drugs as I could ever dream of?”

“I can’t believe you managed a career as a lawyer,” Graves marvels.

Sera smiles wryly. "The duality of woman.” She hops down from her stool, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him after her. “C’mon, maybe some twink will let me do coke off his collarbones."

“ _Jesus_ ,” Graves hisses, but lets himself be lead swiftly out the door, Sera waving her hand to hail a cab. 

He hasn’t been to the Metropolitan in _years._ He'd taken Credence there, once, and the kid had been overwhelmed by the flashing lights and gyrating bodies, so he’d mellowed him out with some weed until he was hazy and loose-limbed, dancing freely and giggling into Graves’ mouth. The memory tugs at him painfully. It seems like there’s nowhere he can go without being assaulted with recollections of Credence.

All of New York is covered in his name. All of New York is cursed.

Friday nights are the peak, and the club is completely packed. Inside,  Sera makes a beeline for the bar, ordering a shot and throwing it back without hesitation. Graves looks around at the circus of bodies, anonymous and genderless and faceless, heads thrown back in ecstasy, bodies in overdrive. Not a sober soul in the room. Except for him, of course.

When he looks back at Sera, she’s already doing another shot. 

“Come on, Graves!” She shouts over the music, tugging at his hand. He follows her into the heart of the crowd, the spinning lights casting sharp pink shadows on her face, the whole room hazy with smoke from the fog machine by the DJ booth. He does his best to forget his inhibitions, dancing with Sera, grinning at her enthusiasm. Some guys come up to dance with them and Sera squeals with glee.

“He’s single and rich!” She practically screams, pointing obnoxiously at Graves. They aren’t his type. All muscle. Jocks. Graves rolls his eyes but plays along, dancing and smiling flirtatiously. God, he’s way too fucking old for this.

After a few songs, Sera shouts _I need another drink_ directly into his ear, piercing against his drum. He winces and waves a hand at her, sending her running off toward the bar. He hangs back, shifting closer to the wall, scanning the room. His eyes fall on a familiar face.

Credence.

Pressed up against Caleb’s body, looking lithe and long in tight black jeans and an even blacker turtleneck. His hair curls into his eyes. They’re dancing, close and intimate, hands on each other’s hips, mouth on grinning mouth. He watches, stunned, as Credence parts his lips to Caleb, kissing him slow and obscene, tongue visibly licking into the man’s mouth. 

Graves feels a combination of sickening and stirring feelings deep in his gut. _Jesus fucking Christ, am I really about to get turned on watching my ex boyfriend make out with his new one?_

Caleb’s hands move down to Credence’s ass and he squeezes. Credence yelps and laughs, wrapping his arms tighter around his partner, mouthing at his cheek. Saying something into his ear.

Graves sees stars. He stumbles away, toward the bar, toward Sera.

“I need a fucking drink,” he says. 

“No- _o_ way!” She exclaims. “I’m not drunk enough to let you fall off the wagon, you lunatic. What’s the matter?”

“Credence,” he says, feeling almost drunk already, his mind reeling. “Credence and his fucking boyfriend, making out on the fucking dance floor, practically fucking each other right then and there. I need a _drink._ ”

“Perci- _val_!” Sera shouts. “Go say hi!”

“Are you insane? We need to get out of here. That, or I’m drinking.”

“No,” she says in a warning tone. “You’re not. And we’re not. We’re gonna have _fun,_ Graves, cause this is your life and it exists apart from Credence. You do know that, right? You know you lived twenty six years without him? You can manage a couple more.”

Graves isn’t so sure. He gives into Sera’s insistence, though, and returns to the dance floor, pulling her in the opposite direction from where he’d seen Credence and Caleb. They were pretty much past the foreplay stage when he saw them, and he’s not ready to see them in the midst of full blown penetration on the floor of this nightclub.

He tries to dance with Sera but his heart’s not in it. She knows that. She shouts at him, frustrated, but that doesn’t work either. Finally, she agrees to leave, complaining the whole way out.

“You promised me a _night_ , Percival, you’re the one who called _me,_ remember?”

“That’s before I saw Credence practically fucking Hitler’s wet dream on the dance floor.”

“Who cares?” She demands shrilly. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve fucked a guy and then seen him the next day with his _wife_?”

“Yeah, exact same thing,” he mutters, glancing up at the cab driver who’s giving them a weird look in the rearview. “You’re _so_ right.”

“Ugh, whatever, Graves,” she whines. “I’m too drunk to listen to you cry about it right now.”

Sera’s a bitch, but at least she’s honest. Graves needs that sometimes. He bids her goodnight when the cab drops him off at his apartment and watches her sink back into the seat, pulling out her phone. Most likely texting whatever boy-toy she’s stringing along, inviting him over. Well, power to her. At least one of them will have a happy ending tonight.

 

——

 

Graves wakes with a pounding headache. 

_Hungover and I didn’t even get to drink_ , he thinks bitterly as he fumbles with the coffee maker, leaning against the countertop and shutting his eyes. He presses his forehead to the cool cupboard door and sighs. He doesn’t want to be a person today. He seems to have more and more of those days, recently.

He lounges around his apartment in sweatpants and no shirt for far longer than a respectable man should. He manages to get dressed and drag himself to the market around the corner for bread, eggs and cigarettes. The essentials. He picks up a pizza from the shop next door and brings it home, content to sit on the couch and watch some more Law and Order for the rest of the night. He makes a mental note to clear his Netflix history — Sera is likely watching him like a fucking hawk after last night. She’s only texted him seven times to make sure he isn’t drinking, after all.

One hand in the box of pizza and the other clutching the remote, Graves falls into a lull, barely even paying attention to the screen in front of him. He’s exhausted from a long day of doing absolutely nothing. He should get some work done, respond to some emails, go for a walk, _anything._ He can’t bring himself to move.

It’s nearly midnight when the doorbell rings.

The high tone jolts him out of his stupor, nearly dropping the half-finished pizza box that’s resting in his lap. God, he’s really licking the dirt at rock bottom. He flicks off the TV and stumbles up to shove the box into the fridge. The doorbell rings again, and again, and then three times in quick succession.

“Fuck, I’m _coming,_ ” he hisses. It's definitely Sera. Nobody else would come harass him this late. Nobody else would come harass him at all, actually. Sera's rather forward, and most times he loves her for that — but now isn't one of those times. He hasn’t answered her texts in a few hours and she probably thinks he’s passed out drunk on the bathroom floor. More than ready to prove her wrong, he swings the door open, and comes face to face with Credence.

Crying. Shaking. Face blotchy red. Lips shiny with spit. Hair a complete mess.

“Credence,” he breathes. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I — can I come in?” The boy hiccups, and he truly is a _boy_ again, back to the familiar form that Graves knows so well. Young. Fragile. Clutching at himself, arms curled protectively over his chest, skinny legs trembling. It’s freezing outside, and he’s only in a teeshirt. Graves can see the goosebumps dotting his arms.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Graves steps back and lets him in, still stunned. Credence stands nervously in the threshold for a moment before Graves shuts the door and ushers him into the living room, sitting him down on the couch. He grabs the soft blanket from his bedroom, the same one they used to keep on the couch of their apartment, and wraps it around Credence’s trembling form. His eyes widen with recognition and he only cries harder.

Graves winces. Maybe not his best idea yet. He busies himself in the kitchen, filling two glasses with water, watching the kid carefully. He’s curled into himself, blanket wrapped around frail shoulders, eyes unfocused and still leaking a steady stream of tears. He’s got one hand on the opposite wrist, slowly stroking up and down along the pale, silvery scar. Graves’ stomach flips.

“What happened, Credence?” He asks gently as he offers up the glass of water. Credence accepts it with a grateful look and takes tiny sips, eyes locked on the floor in front of him. 

“I’m drunk,” he says finally, and then collapses back into sobs, shoulders shaking. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I came here.”

“You can always come here.” _Of course. Of course you can. Nothing has changed. Why would anything have changed?_

“Yeah, but — but I _shouldn’t._ I shouldn’t do this to you. I’m so sorry.” After every break in his sobs where he manages to speak, he crumples again, unable to stay calm for longer than a few seconds. Graves recognizes this specific brand of breakdown. This is how he spent most nights for a year after they split, how he still spends some nights, if he’s being honest. The uncontrollable tears. The hyperventilation. He sits beside Credence on the couch and hesitantly puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Did somebody hurt you?” He asks it as lightly as it can. Credence’s eyes flash.

“ _No,_ ” he says forcefully, tears colouring his voice ugly and harsh. “I only hurt myself. I always hurt myself. It’s always _me,_ I can never just be normal, I… my life is nothing now, Percy, it’s fucking nothing. I’m nothing.”

“Credence, you know that isn’t true. Think of how much you’ve accomplished. You’ve lived so much life already. Think of everything else you’ll do.”

“It’s nothing,” he whispers, shaking his head. “It’s just nothing. My whole life is fake. A fake job and a fake home and a fake relationship and a fake sense of purpose. Nothing is real, nothing will ever be _real._ ”

Graves doesn’t say anything. His mind clings to the third item on the list, burned clearly into his memory, likely to stay there forever.

_He’s drunk,_ he reminds himself. _Think of the things you’ve said when you’re drunk. Don’t take it seriously._

“Hey, I’m proud of you, Credence. For what it’s worth. I think you’re so, so brilliant.” He lets his hand slide around to Credence’s other shoulder, pulling him close against his side. “You’re so brave, puppy.”

The name slips out and he feels Credence clench. He freezes. “Cre, I’m—”

Credence turns and topples him over onto the couch, lips coming in to kiss him hard and clumsy, teeth knocking on teeth, lips damp with spit, tongue pushing messily into his mouth. He puts up a brief and weak attempt to stop him but gives in quickly, kissing back with all the weight of seven years of longing. All the force of his dreams, all the sweetness of his memories. Credence grips at his shirt, twisting the fabric in his sweaty hands, panting against Graves’ mouth, hard liquor on his lips. He grinds his hips down and Graves’ body responds far too quickly — God, it’s been a while.

“Credence,” he tries to say, but it comes out choked and weightless, swallowed by Credence’s moans. 

“Just lemme suck you off Percy, God, fuck, you’re so hot,” Credence is so drunk he’s slurring his words, kissing Graves sloppy and wet, clawing at his shoulders and chest, trying to get his shirt off. “You ‘member I’m so good at it, dontcha? Even better now, Percy, even better.”

“ _Credence_ ,” Graves breathes, grabbing him by the shoulders and holding him firmly, keeping a safe three inches between their faces. Credence pants, staring at him, eyes half-crossed and mouth shiny with spit. “Baby, you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re drunk. You don’t want to do this.”

“I _do._ ” Credence shoves Graves’ hands away and falls back onto him, kissing him like he’s dying, like he’s desperate for breath and Graves is the only one who can give it to him. “Want you inside me so bad, Percy, so bad. You know I never let anyone else fuck me? You know you’re the only one? I’ll never let anyone inside me again. Only you. Only you.”

And god damnit, this may be the worst thing he’s ever done but Graves is only human, and this is the only thing he’s wanted for years. So he kisses back like he’s dying just as quickly, letting Credence hold onto him, letting Credence take whatever he needs. Whatever he wants.

“I love you, Percy,” Credence whimpers. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

“I love you, too,” Graves gasps, clutching at the small of his back, pulling him in impossibly closer, pressing their bodies together, never close enough. “Credence, I—”

The boy jumps back as if he’d been electrocuted. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Credence—”

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” He shrieks, hopping off the couch and pacing the room frantically. “Why did — why didn’t you — I can’t see him — fuck, I need to _go._ ” He tugs at his hair, bends at the waist like he's being split in half. 

“Credence, calm down, it’s okay, you’re okay—”

“What do you want?” Credence wails. “What do you want from me, Percy?”

Graves feels almost like he’s about to start fucking crying, too. He gets up slowly, carefully, because Credence is a frightened little monster: once soft and harmless but now he's all teeth. “I don’t want anything from you, Credence, I just want you to be okay. Are you going to be okay? If you don’t want to see Caleb right now—”

“What do you _mean,_ ” Credence is practically screaming now, and Graves starts to worry about the neighbours. “Why would you say—”

“You _just_ said—”

“What is it, huh, Percy?” Credence’s voice has lowered, taking on a viciousness that Graves has never heard from him before. His eyes are flashing cruelly and he stumbles forward, awful and staggering like an animal trying to die. Graves makes no move to defend himself when Credence shoves him hard in the chest.

“Credence…”

“You wanna hear that he’s no good to me, is that it? That’s what you want, Per- _cy_?” Credence tilts his head, serpentine. “Or do you want me to tell you how good he is? You need me to say it? You wanna hear how he gets me off, Percy? You wanna know he makes me cum? Will that make it all better?”

“Credence, stop.”

Credence falls forward, toppling into Graves’ arms, and Graves almost goes down too at the sudden weight of him. But he manages to catch him, holding him still, cradling his loose-limbed and utterly wasted body. 

“It’s time for you to go home,” Graves says softly.

“I’m so sorry,” Credence whimpers, and then he’s sobbing again, into the folds of Graves’ shirt. “Percy, I’m so—”

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’ll call you a cab.”

Graves walks Credence downstairs and waits with him until the cab arrives. When it does, he helps him inside and hands the driver a wad of cash. He hears Credence mumble out the address. Not his own apartment.

Graves walks back inside and collapses against the door — his lips bitter with defeat, sweet with Credence’s breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so - i love you guys so much, and all your incredible comments and messages (which seriously blow my mind, because it's so amazing that you all take the time to analyze and consider the characters' motivation and behaviours and thoughts...) have motivated me to write this same little story from credence's perspective. so that'll be coming soon! i'm working on it now :) it'll be all in the same time frame, and the same scenes of cre and percy together, but it'll be credence's POV and include the in-between scenes of him alone, him with caleb, etc. i'm also starting to be kinda fond of caleb, and i'm looking forward to exploring their relationship a little bit. so THANK YOU! for always inspiring me to keep going with this story :) 
> 
> oh, and sorry about the relentless heartbreak


	5. Chapter 5

Graves spends two hours writing, deleting and rewriting messages to Credence. He considers emailing. He considers a handwritten letter. He could call Sera, but she’ll just tell him he’s an idiot for letting Credence in in the first place. He could tell Tina and Newt, but they’ll hate him for it. He even considers calling his fucking therapist.

In the end, he says nothing. 

Nothing he could do would make anything better. It never does. 

He got what he wanted, didn’t he? Got to taste the boy again, to kiss him, to press himself against his body, feel the silk of his skin, the tight muscles of his torso, the breath, hot and sweet on his face. Got to hear him say those words that he thought he may never hear again. _I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou._

But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

He’s never been more defeated. He has a sick feeling that he’ll never hear from Credence again, going by how erratic and volatile the boy was last night. Credence probably hates him now.

So he throws himself into work. Emails all of his contacts and lets them know his schedule is free. Ends up with back to back sessions for the next month, enough time to scramble his brain with constant work, not a single second left open for his own traitorous mind to fill with unwanted memories. He starts to live in studios again, from dawn to the late hours of the night, always collapsing into bed far too exhausted to dream.

It’s been three weeks since Credence showed up in the middle of the night. Graves is finally starting to convince himself to forget the entire fiasco when he gets a text.

 

_Can I come over?_

 

That’s all it says. No explanation, no _hey, sorry I showed up and kissed you and told you I love you and then disappeared again._

Of course, Graves says yes. Of course.

Credence arrives twenty minutes later. It’s Sunday, Graves’ only day off, and he’s been trying to get some work done around the house. Tidy it up, at the very least. Credence perches on the couch, watching him meticulously arrange his records on the shelf before moving on to the paperback novels.

“Sorry about the other night,” he says finally.

Graves has to stop himself from laughing out of pure disbelief.

“Yeah, no problem, Credence,” is all he can manage. Fuck, the kid is as infuriating as ever. Even when he’s nearly thirty, which Graves still can’t contend with. He’s starting to think that Credence will always he immortalized in his mind, stuck forever at nineteen years old, one hundred and thirty pounds, lanky and rosy-cheeked and so, so sweetly naive. 

Maybe he’s better that way: a perfect, shiny image in Graves’ memory, a still-frame with no sound, no feeling, none of the ugly-messy-beautiful tragedy of being human.

“Can I help with anything?” Graves is startled by the voice behind him. Somehow Credence approached without making a sound — or maybe Graves was too lost in thought, fantasizing about past versions of the boy when the real one is right here with him: living and breathing, blood thrumming through his veins, cloudy thoughts making his eyes look distant. 

Credence peers over Graves’ shoulder to where his hands clutch at his copy of _Call Me By Your Name._

“I read that last year,” he says. “It made me cry so much.”

“Me too,” Graves murmurs. God, it had, and he has that awful, indelible monologue highlighted and underlined and burned into his brain forever. He flips to the page, dog-eared to the point where the corner is on the verge of ripping off, and quietly reads aloud: “‘If there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything— what a waste.’”

“We rip out so much of ourselves,” Credence repeats, and then he sits down on the floor beside him.

“You don’t seem to have ripped out much of anything,” Graves says quietly.

Credence doesn’t respond, but he reaches over to the pile of books, nudging a few aside and picking up the worn-out copy of _Gatsby._ The book has been through nearly as much as they have. Read so many times the pages are tattered; shoved into Credence’s backpack when he ran away; tucked into his suitcase when they traveled to Europe; held delicately in Graves’ hands while he sat at Credence’s bedside, scars on his wrist still shiny pink, reading to him. The deep blue of the cover has faded and the spine is worn, so many pages folded over that the book has grown thicker than its bindings. Credence turns it over in his hands, long fingers slipping between pages, flipping through.

“I still need to buy a copy,” he says finally. “I haven’t read it, since.”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He leaves the _since_ dangling there in mid air, right in the space between their bodies. If only Graves could push it aside, step through it, then nothing would stand between them.

He opens his mouth to speak but Credence’s eyes have already narrowed in on the plain black shoebox pushed into the corner at the bottom of the wardrobe. He reaches for it and Graves catches his arm. Credence’s eyes shoot up. Feline. Challenging. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Graves says. Too quickly.

“C’mon, Percy.” Credence is putting on his voice, _that_ voice, and Graves can’t deny him anything. He lets go of his arm and sits back on his heels, watching as he picks up the shoebox in delicate hands and places it in front of him, lifting the top.

It’s nearly full now. Seven years of material, after all. Every magazine article, every photograph, every newspaper clipping, every review and headline, every internet post printed and carefully cut out.

He can’t bring himself to watch. He stands and walks to the kitchen on unsteady legs, aching from just ten minutes of kneeling. He feels old. He feels ill. He pours a glass of water and drinks it and then turns back to look at Credence.

His eyes are wide and watery and his lower lip is trembling, his mouth open just barely. He looks at each and every slip of paper in the box, turning them over, scanning the lines, holding them so delicately between his fingertips — as if he knows, by touch alone, how sacred they are.

Every symbol of Graves’ devotion. Every piece of evidence proving his longing, his desperation, his love. Every thread of hope that he’s collected, every little piece of Credence he managed to hold on to, to save and to cherish. It’s all tucked away in this box, in his heart — the heart that has broken so many times that the windows are boarded and the locks are bolted.

There, kneeling on the floor, Credence opens Graves’ heart again.

There’s a peculiar stillness in the room. Though Credence’s hands move, there’s no sound. Each paper is silent as it flutters back into the pile. Credence is chewing at his lower lip, his face creased with thought, his hands shaking visibly.

Finally, he looks up.

“Percy.”

He sounds like a child again.

“I’m so sorry, Credence.” His throat hurts, like it’s trying to prevent him from speaking. The words come out hoarse and dull.

“How long?”

Graves’ hands curl into fists. “Since I left.”

A shudder rolls through the entire shape of Credence, kneeling with his head bowed as if in prayer, hands clutching at either side of the box. Graves wants to say something, to comfort him, but he can’t make his mouth work. So he just watches. Watches Credence cry, watches the realization pass over him, watches seven years of Graves’ pining hit him like a train.

For several minutes they stay there, a sickening tableau, a sad movie with no resolution. The kind Graves has always hated.

“I’m moving.”

Well, that’s not what he’d expected.

“What?” His mouth is suddenly very dry. 

“I’m moving,” Credence repeats, and looks up at him. His eyes are red. There are little shiny trails down his soft cheeks. “Next week. I’m moving to Sweden with Caleb. I’m not coming back.”

“What do you mean.” It’s not really a question. He knows what Credence means. He just wants him to mean something different.

“I mean I’m leaving,” Credence looks almost _accusatory,_ a hint of hysteria in his voice. Funny, considering he’s the one up and leaving forever with only a week’s notice. “I’m leaving New York, I’m leaving America, I’m not going to _be_ here anymore.”

Graves swallows hard. “You said you were on and off—”

“Yeah, I fucking lied, okay?”

“But your — your career, Credence, what—”  


“I found a studio there,” Credence snaps, and Graves can’t figure out for the life of him why Credence is so angry. “I’ve already worked it all out. It doesn’t _matter_ , Percy, that’s not important.”

Graves doesn’t say anything for a long time. He can feel Credence’s hurt and desperation coming off him like smoke, as though Graves is the one leaving him, as though it’s _his_ fault.

“Is that what you want?” He asks finally. It’s a stupid thing to ask. Of course it’s what he wants. Nobody moves to another continent if it’s not what they _want._

“I don’t know,” Credence whispers. “I think so. I thought so.”

He looks down at the box in front of him, hands flat against his thighs as if he’s forcing himself not to reach back in. Graves’ mouth presses into a hard line. He’s suddenly overcome with the stupid thought that this is all a game, that this is some long-winded scene they’re playing out, like at any moment they’ll collapse into laughter and it will all be over.

_You almost got me there,_ he would say. _Almost._

“Orchid,” he whispers.

Credence’s eyes shoot up, dark and flashing. “What?”

“Orchid.”

Credence gets up slowly, shakily. “Fuck you, Percival.”

“Credence, I—”

“No, fuck you!” He shouts, and he hits Graves square in the chest with one palm, face nearly trembling with fury. “Fuck you for making me feel like I’m doing the wrong thing. Fuck you for hating the fact that I’m finally happy. Fuck you for still loving me seven years later and being too much of a coward to say it. Fuck you for leaving me in the first place.” He’s sobbing by the end of it, clutching at his elbows as though he’s holding himself together, like if he lets himself go he’ll spill all over the floor.

Graves is fumbling for words, trying to spit out apologies, to take it all back, but he can’t. Before he can wrap his lips around a coherent sentence, Credence is out the door, slamming it behind him. Graves could swear the whole building shakes with the force of it. He stands in the center of the room, staring at the door, at the place where Credence had just been, watching him leave over and over and over again like an endless hologram inside his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, i can't believe we've reached the end, seven years later. thank you for sticking with me all this time <3
> 
> make sure to subscribe to this series/keep checking back because there's more to be posted, such as credence's POV of this part and possibly some gap-fills within the 7 years they spent apart :)
> 
> THANK YOU!! i love you all!!
> 
> <3

Graves feels somewhat like he’s stuck in the climactic scene of a very bad rom-com as he runs through the airport, pushing through crowds of people, taking the escalator three steps at a time and launching himself onto the upper platform. He scans the room, the various lines leading to security clearance checkpoints, separated by airline. Was it Air France or Delta? Suddenly he can’t think. 

( _He flies out Thursday morning,_ Modesty had told him in a hushed voice over the phone, as though Credence could somehow hear. The instinctive quieting of herself is so similar to the way Credence used to speak whenever he mentioned his mother. Old habits die hard. _From JFK. His flight’s at eleven. Caleb already left, so he… he won’t be there. Percy, please don’t tell him I told you._

Graves had promised her he wouldn’t, thanking her profusely. She had been his very last hope.)

He curses under his breath and makes his way toward the Delta checkpoint.

And that’s when he sees him. Just at the edge of the roped off line, backpack thrown over his shoulder, clutching the handle of a small suitcase. Those stupid, endearing glasses are perched on his nose, a red beanie flattening his curls.

“Credence!”

He whips around and gapes at Graves.

“Percy, what are you doing here?”

“Credence, I need to talk to you. Please. Please talk to me.”

People are staring but he doesn’t fucking care. Credence shifts his weight uncomfortably on his feet, white knuckles on the hand that clasps his suitcase. “I can’t, Percy. I have to go. I’m gonna miss my flight."

“Credence,” he begs. “Give me one minute. Just one minute, please.”

Credence’s teeth dig into his lip and he squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a breath. “Okay. One minute. Then I have to go.”

He ducks out of line and steps aside with Graves, taking refuge from the crowds against a tall divider. 

“What do you want?”

Graves breathes out slowly. “Credence, I want you to stay.”

Credence shakes his head with a tight smile. “No, Percy. You don’t get to decide.”

“That’s not what I mean, I—” Graves shakes his head in frustration, digging his fingertips into his temples and staring at the floor. He’d planned this out in his head, running through his lines over and over again, even muttering them to himself on the drive here. Dress rehearsal. Now, his mind is an empty room. 

When he looks up, his eyes sting with tears. “Credence, I am so sorry for everything I did wrong, every time I hurt you, every single way that I fucked you up. Maybe some of the damage I did was irreparable. But it seems like you’ve done pretty well. I’m glad that you moved on, and I’m glad that you grew up, and I’m glad that you’re happy. Really, I am. But I love you, Credence, and I’m never going to stop. I love you more than anybody has ever loved anything or anyone—”

“Percy—”

“No. _Listen_ to me, Credence. It’s been seven years and you’re still the only person I think about. Every morning, every night, when I’m happy and when I’m absolutely goddamn miserable. And everyone keeps telling me I need to let go, to leave you alone, but they don’t understand. The only people who get it are you and me, Credence, and you know that. If you love this guy, if you really, really love him, and you think you’ll be happy in Sweden, then go. I want you to be free. I want you to decide. But I don’t think this is what you really want, and I think you tried to tell me that. You can — you can hate me all you want, sweetheart, you can never speak to me again, but your life is here. Your job is here. Your friends are here. Your sister is here. New York is a better place with you in it. You’re so beautiful, Credence, so beautiful and talented and brilliant, and I know you grew up thinking that God fucked up when he made you, but God fucked up when he only made one of you and I can’t let you go. I can’t. I’m sorry.” He heaves in a sob and steadies his voice. The floodgates can’t fucking break now. Not yet. “I’m sorry I can’t leave you alone. I’m sorry I can’tmove on. I know that you’ve changed, and you know that I have too. But no matter who we are or who we become, at the core it’s still the same. And at the core, something fused us together, and you’re a part of me now, and there are pieces of you that I can’t dig out of myself no matter how hard I try.”

Credence is crying now, shoulders shaking, tears rolling down his face and dampening the collar of his shirt.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into all my problems and didn’t let you breathe. I’m sorry I made you think that the pain is what you wanted. Fuck, Credence, I’m sorry I never took you to the eye doctor. I should have taken care of you. I should have known you needed glasses.”

“ _Percy_ ,” Credence laughs, voice thick with tears. “You aren’t my father. You had no responsibility to—”

“But I _should_ have,” Graves says desperately. “Credence, don’t you get it? I made you depend on me and then I didn’t take care of you the way I should have. And I’m so sorry. Meeting you is the one and only truly good thing that has ever happened to me in this life. The things I did to make you happy are the only things I’ve done that really matter. You are everything to me, still, after seven years.” He reaches out and Credence does too, shakily, slowly. He clasps their hands, hooking their fingers together, feeling Credence’s soft palm against his own. “Please stay. Please don’t go. I want you here, with me. And I know that I’m selfish, and I’m a fuck up, and I hurt you so badly, but I would do anything to keep you close to me.” He squeezes Credence’s hand, looking at him straight on, not daring to even blink. “Marry me, Credence. Stay in New York. Marry me.”

Credence’s breath hitches and he steps back. His eyes are round and popping. Their hands fall apart and Graves feels empty once more.

He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket with one shaking hand. Pulls out the tattered old copy of _Gatsby_ and hands it over. An offering. A sacrifice. Credence takes it, not looking down, not for a second.

“If you’re going to go, I want you to take this.” He tries not to choke up now, not when he’s so close to the very end of it all. “Take this and don’t forget me. But don’t call. Okay, Credence? If you’re going to go, then I need you to go, and I need you to not come back.”

Credence swallows hard, his throat tightening. He stands there, staring. Silent. But finally he nods.

Graves takes in one long, shuddering breath. “Okay. Okay, I’m going to leave now. Goodbye, Credence.”

He turns and walks away.

Past the security lines, past the coffee shops, past the baggage checks.

Past the weary-eyed security guards, past the frantic mothers corralling their children, past the couples with matching luggage and smiles that look like they might be cut from diamond.

Through the bustling crowds of people, through the intercom announcements and coffee-smell and shrill shrieks of children, through the thickness of loss and the suffocating longing burrowed deep in his bones, spread out through the air. He walks slowly, unable to breathe, unable to think or to feel anything at all. The world begins to fade out, sounds coming in fractured and wrong like he’s underwater, diving deep into a cavernous nothing.

He can hear Credence’s voice ringing out in his memory, an echo chamber of everything he used to have, everything he’s ever loved. _Percy!_ The childish sweetness, the obsession, the fever of want and need, the voice singing in his ear for the rest of his life, for the rest of eternity, like a song on repeat.

_Percy._

“Percy!”

He turns on his heel. The world seems to tilt on its axis, the passerbys frozen in place, all the noise of the room suddenly swallowed up into unshakeable silence. Everything presents itself in still images; the only parts that matter. 

One very black pupil, blown out wide. A loose curl of dark hair. A soft, pale hand, outstretched.

“Wait.”


End file.
